From the Soul on Call series
Note: These reflections are fictional and intended for educational and reflective purposes only. They are not medical advice, and do not represent the views of any employer or institution.
The ER break room smelled like stress and microwaved spaghetti.
Dr. Ima Peake jabbed the vending machine keypad, jaw tight. The machine wheezed, blinked, and stole her money.
Her stomach cramped. Six hours since breakfast. She didn’t want spaghetti. She wanted silence. Instead, the resident’s note looped in her head:
Tolerated procedure well.
The patient had no pulse for forty seconds.
You should have caught it.
You’re slipping.
You used to be better.
Patterned socks entered her peripheral vision. Dr. Zen Flow set down a dented thermos and a packet of seaweed crisps.
Zen: Vending machine wins again.
Ima didn’t answer.
He poured tea into a spare lid and slid it across the table. She sat, more out of reflex than choice.
Ima: I should’ve double-checked the chart.
Zen: One note doesn’t undo a shift.
Ima: It shouldn’t have been in the note at all.
He shrugged.
Zen: Sometimes the note gets written before the body remembers what happened.
She pressed the rim of the lid into her palm until it left a circle. She drank. Too gentle. The voice in her head wanted commands.
Fix it.
Be faster.
Her pager buzzed and stopped. Not hers. The building clearing its throat.
Zen: You eaten?
Ima: Spaghetti doesn’t count.
He pushed the seaweed across the table. She chewed, grimaced. Too salty. She kept eating.
Ima: I used to do this part better.
Zen twisted the thermos cap. Untwisted it.
Zen: I thought the same once. About a lot of parts.
Her phone lit up with a lab result and went dark. She straightened in her chair like posture could cancel mistakes.
You don’t get to be tired.
You don’t get to miss.
Ima: Resident wrote “tolerated well.” There was no pulse.
Zen: Then the addendum will matter.
Ima: And the part where my eyes were on another monitor.
Zen: The addendum will matter.
The steam rose between them. The spaghetti smell thinned.
Her pager buzzed again. This time, hers. She stood.
Ima: I should go fix the note.
Zen: Good.
He folded a square of paper from a requisition slip and tucked it into her pocket as she passed. No explanation.
Hours later, she was back in her apartment. The hum of the washing machine filled the dark kitchen. Scrubs lay in a heap by the door. On the counter, the folded square of paper waited beside her phone.
She dried her hands, then opened it. Zen’s careful script:
What if the voice isn’t the only engine.
She almost rolled her eyes. Almost.
She unlocked her phone, the Notes app blinking open. Her thumbs hovered. Typed. Deleted. Then tried again:
I want to be useful. Not to prove I’m good enough. But because I already am.
It didn’t feel like truth. Not yet.
But she left it there anyway.
The machine clicked into spin, steady and unbothered. She stood still, letting the sentence sit.
If you’ve ever lived with a voice like hers, you know belief doesn’t arrive cleanly. Quiet isn’t certainty. It’s practice.
🌱 Still fighting with the voice that once drove you?
This week’s Soul Kit might help:
The Voice That Drives and Drains Me
Just a quiet space—to unhook from the harsh voice, and maybe reshape it into something more human.
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